Observations on Group Behavior in a Special Forces A Team Under
Threat of Attack

[The following paper was written by Peter G. Bourne,
now vice-chancellor of St. George's University in Grenada, and is
posted here with his permission. Dr. Bourne is also the author of
Men, Stress, and Viet Nam (Little Brown 1971) and The
Psychology and Physiology of Stress (Academic Press, 1972) — Dan Ford]

Abstract

Small group behavior has long been a topic of major interest to
investigators in the social sciences. Naturally occurring groups,
experimentally formed groups, and groups designed to have a
therapeutic influence in recent years. Stimulating this work has
been the underlying belief that the small group represented a
manageable microcosm of human interaction, the study of which
should lead to important inferences about the wider society. It is
now acknowledged that insights into small group behavior have
important implications for our understanding of social systems,
of culture, and of personality.

INTRODUCTION

The study of group behavior in the military has been of
particular interest because of the unusual external stresses to
which those in the Armed Forces are subjected. Beginning with the
classical paper, "The Small Warship," by Homans in World War II,
wide-ranging studies have investigated many facets of group
behavior and performance in a variety of military
settings. However, investigation of social behavior in combat has
tended to focus on large, ill-defined groups; and especially in
the Korean conflict the emphasis was upon those factors that
contributed to the development of psychiatric casualties. There
has been little attempt in the past to study the effects of
combat on small, well-defined groups where the adaptations to the
stresses of war have been successful.

The war in Vietnam has provided a unique opportunity to study
the effects of the threat of death or mutilation in combat on the
behavior of small isolated groups of men. This paper reports on
observations made on a group of twelve Special Forces (Green
Beret) soldiers living in an isolated outpost in the Central
Highlands of South Vietnam.

ORGANIZATION AND MISSION

The twelve subjects in this study were the members of an "A"
team, the primary organizational unit of Special Forces. Beginning
in the early sixties such teams were sent into the mountainous
areas of Vietnam to recruit and train the local tribesmen into
Civilian Irregular Defense Groups, (C.I.D.G.), para-military
units without formal connection to the South Vietnamese
Army. Working with a counterpart twelve man Vietnamese Special
Forces unit, they establish and defend isolated camps at
strategic locations in Viet Cong controlled territory.

This
study was conducted in a camp located six miles from the
Cambodian border and forty miles southwest of the Central
Highland city of Pleiku. The site had been chosen so as to provide
significant obstruction to the free flow of arms and men from the
Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam. The threat of attack by an
overwhelmingly superior force was always present, but was
considerably increased at the start of the monsoon season in May
of 1966, at the time this study was initiated. Although no all-out
assault on the camp occurred, several members of the team,
including successive commanding officers, were killed during this
time of threatened attack. A colorful description of life in this
particular camp has recently been published by a freelance
journalist.

SUBJECTS

Two of the subjects were officers and ten were enlisted men. All
were Caucasian. Two were married, and ten were single or
divorced. Ages ranged from 22 to 41 years (median 26). Education
ranged from 10 to 16 years (median 12). Years of military service
ranged from 1.5 to 20 years (median 5.5). Time in Vietnam ranged
from 5 to 36 months (median 8.5), and time in camp ranged from 1
to 10 month (median 8).

All of the men had past combat
experience, and for some this had been very extensive. Three of
the enlisted men had been in Korea, and one had also fought in
World War II. Aside from his general military competency each man
in some individual skill, such as demolitions, as a medic, or as
a radio operator. They had also been taught an awareness of their
responsibility to the group and their mutual obligation to it to
maximize their chance of survival.

DATA COLLECTION

The author and an enlisted social work technician remained in the
camp for three months during May, June, and July of 1966, as
semi-participant observers. Frequent informal interviews were made
with each of the team members to obtain background information
and an understanding of their role in the group. A daily log was
maintained of all activities in the camp as well as the
significant events in the lives of each of the subjects. Records
were also kept of all military activity in the area that had
direct bearing on the level of stress in the camp or the demands
placed on the team members. Twenty-four hour urine collections for
the measurement of various endocrines were made on each subject,
and certain psychological tests were administered. These aspects
of the study are reported elsewhere.

Brief visits were made to
five other Special Forces "A" camps to validate the findings of
this study.